The invention relates to connecting a message received from a network to a particular subscriber in a server of a service provider when the service provider identifies the subscriber with a different identifier than what the network conveying the service employs for identifying the subscriber in the messages associated with the subscriber.
Services offered by means of telecommunications systems, particularly mobile communications systems, are being continuously improved. At the same time as services are diversified, separate service providers are increasingly participating in providing such services, to whom the actual network operators sell data transmission services. The service providers provide services for the end users through separate servers, which are connected to the network of the network operator. Examples of different servers are WAP servers (Wireless Application Protocol) and what are known as push servers.
The service providers and the servers generally employ the telephone number of the subscriber for identifying the subscriber, which for example in the Pan-European GSM system (Global System for Mobile Communication) is an MSISDN (Mobile Subscriber International ISDN number). However, the telephone number is not used in mobile communication networks for identifying the subscriber, instead the subscriber is generally identified using a mobile station subscriber identifier, which in the GSM system is an IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity). In the direction of a mobile station the GSM-based network also employs a TMSI identifier (Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity). The network knows which TMSI identifier corresponds to which IMSI identifier.
When the server sends a message to the subscriber using the subscriber telephone number MSISDN, the mobile communication network changes the MSISDN number to the IMSI identifier of the mobile station subscriber. In other words the mobile communications systems include a mechanism that on the basis of the MSISDN number determines the mobile station identifier IMSI. The problem with prior art mobile systems is that they lack the mechanism that allows to determine the MSISDN number using the mobile station subscriber identifier IMSI. Therefore, information associated with the subscriber cannot be transferred directly from the mobile communications network to the server, for example billing information so that the server knows to which subscriber the information is assigned. As the subscriber is identified in the network information with a subscriber identifier, the server is unaware of which subscriber (telephone number) the identifier is assigned to, and is therefore unable to utilize the information.